Why the Shocking Video of the Police Attack on Black Kids at a Pool Shouldn’t Shock Us

The
disproportionate policing of a group of black youths in McKinney,
Texas has deep roots in the history of race and recreation in
America. Swimming pools and beaches were among the most segregated
and fought over public spaces throughout the country, in the North
and the South. White stereotypes of blacks as diseased and sexually
threatening undergirded this segregation. City leaders justifying
segregation also pointed to fears of fighting breaking out if whites
and blacks mingled. Racial separation for them equaled racial peace.
White teenagers strengthened this belief by attacking black swimmers
after activists or city officials opened public pools to blacks.

“When
pools have been opened on a nonsegregated basis,” noted one legal
scholar in 1954, “either under legal compulsion or by voluntary
action, disturbances have resulted more frequently than in any other
instances of desegregation.” Whites threw nails at the bottom of
pools, poured bleach on black bathers, or simply beat them up. In the
late 1940s there were major swimming pool riots in St. Louis,
Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.

And
despite civil rights statutes in many states the law did not come to
African Americans’ aid. In Charlotte, North Carolina, for example,
the chairman of the Charlotte Park and Recreation Commission in 1960
admitted that “all people have a right under law to use all public
facilitates including swimming pools.” But he went on to point out
that “of all public facilities, swimming pools put the tolerance of
the white people to the test.” His conclusion was predictable:
“Public order is more important than rights of Negroes to use
public facilities and any admission of Negroes must be within the
bounds of the willingness of white people to observe order or the
ability of police to enforce it.” In practice black swimmers were
not admitted to pools if the managers felt “disorder will result.”
Disorder and order
defined accessibility, not the law.

Only
after decades of persistent activism did these barriers begin to
fall. But instead of whites and blacks swimming and playing together
recreational facilities in American cities have been defunded and
apartheid continues to mark the recreational landscape. By the 1970s
the virulent racism so common earlier in the century had been
replaced by a colorblind discourse suggesting that choices about
where to live, work, and play were individual decisions separate from
the legacy of racism. But there are moments when one hears the direct
echo of those earlier struggles. In 2009, for example, the owner of a
private swim club in Philadelphia excluded black children attending a
Philadelphia day care center, saying they would change the
“complexion” of the club. And now in a wealthy subdivision
outside of Dallas police target black
teenagers and some in the surrounding community make it clear they –
the black children – are not welcome.

The
McKinney incident occurred at Craig Ranch, a development in the
affluent Dallas suburb. The homeowner association there limited
attendance at their pool to residents and two guests. The appearance
of a group of African American teenagers, who were attending a
birthday party, emboldened at least one resident to call the police.
Like the gated community in Sanford, Florida, where Travon Martin was
shot, Craig Ranch is not a fully public space. The
increase of gated communities and homeowners associations, what the
political scientist Evan McKenzie calls “privatopia,” also
led to the privatization of recreation. In the mid-1960s the Federal
Housing Administration (FHA) openly discouraged public ownership of
recreational facilities. Instead, they promoted private homeowner
associations in planned developments with private pools and tennis
courts.

It
is not a coincidence that the rise of homeowners associations and
gated communities coincided with the victories of the civil rights
revolution. After
the 1964 Civil Rights Act desegregated public accommodations
municipalities followed different strategies intended to keep the
racial peace through maintaining segregation. Some simply filled
their pools in, leaving more affluent residents the option of putting
in backyard pools. Public pools also created membership clubs and
began to charge fees, which acted as a barrier to filter out those
pool managers felt were “unfit.” And many cities defunded their
recreational facilities, leaving all urban dwellers with little
access to pools.

The
racial stereotypes that justified swimming segregation, that young
blacks were inherently diseased and dangerous, are not often openly
expressed today. However, we still see their impact on our urban and
suburban landscapes. Because through much of the twentieth century
recreational facilities promoted themselves as “safe” and “clean”
by excluding African Americans, when integration came whites devalued
those spaces and fled to private pools and tennis clubs. In the past
when white neighbors perceived a threat from young blacks they called
on their teenage sons to attack the invaders and maintain
segregation. Today they call the cops.